Leaf Chromatography Lab Report

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Gather all supplies needed:
• Leaves
• Grass
• Scissors
• Mortar
• Pestle
• Spatula
• Sand
• Acetone (10ml In total)
• Chromatography paper
• Tow pencils
• A ruler
• Capillary tube
• Petroleum ether/acetone ix (9:1)
• Gas tube
• Tin foil
• Bulldog clip
• Blue tack
• Pipette

1. Cut up a handful of leaves (reasonably small handful) with the scissors and place in the mortar.
2. Add half a spatula (no more) of sand into the mortar with the leaves, and then add 5ml acetone with the pipette into the mortar as well.
3. Carefully grind the leaves, acetone and sand together in the mortar with the pestle until the acetone liquid turns dark green –this green pigment is the solution you will put onto the chromatography paper.
4. Label the mortar L …show more content…

From the similarities in the samples we can see that the samples both had the same three substances present. Brown was found in the leaf sample but not the grass sample and light green was only found in the leaf sample so some differences were found.

Conclusions / Analysis
The substances: carotene, phaeophytin a, phaeophytin b, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b can be identified using a calculation to calculate the Rf of a substance. We calculate the Rf of every colour present on the chromatography paper. Then calculate: Rf = distance moved by the compound distance moved by the solvent
The compounds are the different colours that can be identified –the distance moved by the compound can be calculated by measuring the distance (in cm) from the colour (find the middle of the colour) to the pencil line at the top of the paper where the solvent/petroleum ether mix stopped. You then divide this by the distance the solvent/petroleum ether mix moved which is the distance from the bottom line to the top line.We can then compare our Rf values to a secondary data table to see if any substances are present and can be identified.
Name of substance Colour Rf
Carotene Yellow 0.95
Phaeophytin a Yellow-grey 0.83
Xanthophyll Yellow-brown

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